Government scraps Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes!

This is a discussion on Government scraps Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes! within Shifting gears, part of the Around the Corner category; Easiest way to create a password is to use a phrase dear to you and use the first letter of ...

The RBI may be a government associated organisation, but it happens to be one of those rare ones (among others such as the ECI) that have a constitutional mandate to discharge their duties in an autonomous manner.

A factual correction; the RBI is not a constitutional body. In fact, the RBI pre-dates the Constitution of India.

People who are saying they are not seeing queues outside ATM's and inferring that situation is getting better - please do actually go to the ATM and check if it is actually functioning or not. I went to two HDFC ATM's in my area (Goregaon, Mumbai) and both of them were empty i.e. had no queues. Why? Not because it has enough cash and things are getting better but they are not functioning at all!

Meanwhile, an uncle of mine gave me his analysis of the situation - "this whole exercise might not achieve what it was supposed to achieve. While the upper middle class and rich people go on with their lives, it is the poor who suffered (as usual). The poor always suffers in life."

I am not sure if demonetization has actually helped in getting back black money. I am not even sure if we will ever find out.

The reverse is also true. People are going to an ATM and seeing it empty, are inferring there is no cash (assuming otherwise it would have long queue). It happened to me twice. Went to the market with 2 ATMs. One had a small queue of 5 people, other was empty. I assumed the other one was not dispensing money and got into the queue. Some wise guy walked into the empty ATM and came out smiling, flashing his pink note. Next time it happened when I was in my home town. Again 2 ATms, one SBI and other one ICICI. SBI one had its shutter down and people were just coming, passing by and assuming the ICICI one was also not working. This time I went inside, swiped 2 cards, took out 4000 rupees and by the time I turned around to exit, there was a small queue!

A factual correction; the RBI is not a constitutional body. In fact, the RBI pre-dates the Constitution of India.

Yes, it predates the Constitution of India as it's governed by the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934.

I thought/assumed the Constitution mandated its autonomy when it was nationalised in 1949.*

It turns out that I was wrong. My apologies!

The Constitution of India very sadly does not mandate autonomy for the RBI.

Whatever autonomy it has is merely operational autonomy gained over the years (thanks to the efforts of successive governors), though there have been attempts to prescribe some degree of legally defined autonomy which haven't borne fruit yet.

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* - The Reserve Bank of India was a privately owned central bank before 1949, just like the US Federal Reserve is & always has been!

The RBI had suddenly stopped giving out details of the demonetised notes that have come back into the banking system after Dec. 10 or so.

I agree with you. My own initial feelings were (and still are) is that Demonetisation would bring in a positive change. How ever I am also not very happy with RBI now just keeping quite. They should by now at least know the amounts which have got deposited. And they can confirm on the amount which has come in AND the amount which they expected (or officially) was in circulation.

This is very interesting. From a learning perspective would you be able to share some example/s....

This is OT. It's very easy. But you have to try it yourself. I recently changed my gmail password the same way. Using the same set of keys n number of combinations can be generated. And its easy to remember too.

The RBI had suddenly stopped giving out details of the demonetised notes that have come back into the banking system after Dec. 10 or so. I wonder why???

If they had nothing to worry about, why did they suddenly stop releasing the data?

Most of the notes (not less than 90% ) are back with the banks. Unconfirmed news says that there have been a few blunders while printing the now demonetised currency whereby the same serial number have been printed on more than one note, meaning more than 15 lakh crore of this currency would actually be coming back into the banks, against the expectation of our great FM than 25 % of the currency would not come back.

Unconfirmed news says also that this is the real reason why the government again went back on their word and is now saying that only NRI's can exchange their currency at RBI counters, unlike what was announced on Nov 8th.

All in all it just goes on to prove that this has been, without doubt, the biggest economic blunder under taken by an elected govt in Indian history. The direct expense on this demonetisation exercise is stated to be around one lakh twenty thousand crores. The total black money unearthed so far would not exceed a few thousand crores at best.The government is now just trying to save its derriere, evident through constant flip flops and this bakra in the name of digital economy.

The lack of data/info coming out of RBI and the govt. needs to be taken in context.

Facts/numbers (X Crores of money came into system) are auditable, disputable and disprovable, while rhetoric (X Crores people support this, everyone else is a thief) is the exact opposite; inauditable, impossible to disprove and easy to spread, just shout it out loud and often enough.

It's difficult to believe the authorities suddenly need audits to even quantify the incoming/collected volume, given they were practically handing out live updates in the first few weeks. What changed?

Unconfirmed news says that there have been a few blunders while printing the now demonetised currency whereby the same serial number have been printed on more than one note,

Who was responsible for the printing of the now invalidated currency? I mean the old series of Rs.500 & Rs.1000 notes? Certainly not the government who initiated the demonetization exercise, am I right? Which means the past governments had kind of sabotaged any chance of improving Indian economy even before Sep 2014!! And who was the Reserve Bank Governor then? The Mr.Perfect who was just asked to leave to the US. And who was the Reserve Bank Governor then? Who deliberately allowed such goof ups to happen (and was not even aware of this)?

But the serial number on the notes currently do not matter, as now it is about the accounted money in each person's account. Take example of a taxi driver in Hyderabad who suddenly had a few crores in his account. How did that happen, and now who is going to pay the tax on this income?

The current PM is no baby angel when it comes to Indian politics. He has walked through fire to reach what he is today. So I don't think he would just allow his rival politicians to use this exercise to prove that his government was the only disaster to befall this country. My gut feeling; now on we can see some news hear and there about raids, IT notices going in and a few recovery of tax dues. This would just go on an on, so that there is a perception of black money holders now being taken to task. See what is happening in West Bengal now.

Who was responsible for the printing of the now invalidated currency? I mean the old series of Rs.500 & Rs.1000 notes? Certainly not the government who initiated the demonetization exercise, am I right? Which means the past governments had kind of sabotaged any chance of improving Indian economy even before Sep 2014!! And who was the Reserve Bank Governor then? The Mr.Perfect who was just asked to leave to the US. And who was the Reserve Bank Governor then? Who deliberately allowed such goof ups to happen (and was not even aware of this)?

But the serial number on the notes currently do not matter, as now it is about the accounted money in each person's account. Take example of a taxi driver in Hyderabad who suddenly had a few crores in his account. How did that happen, and now who is going to pay the tax on this income?

The current PM is no baby angel when it comes to Indian politics. He has walked through fire to reach what he is today. So I don't think he would just allow his rival politicians to use this exercise to prove that his government was the only disaster to befall this country. My gut feeling; now on we can see some news hear and there about raids, IT notices going in and a few recovery of tax dues. This would just go on an on, so that there is a perception of black money holders now being taken to task. See what is happening in West Bengal now.

There is no supporting data that the duplication of serial numbers of the notes happened in the previous government's rule, this like most have realized is the single biggest blunder an elected government has made.

This exercise is not to testify the fact that the present government is forged in the fires of Indian politics and this is certainly not about an individual, or is it?

Like others have already mentioned, there were other easier way of recovering un accounted wealth, For instance, conduct raids on eminent builders in each city, conduct raids on doctors especially from the government sector, getting all under the tax net could have been less harsh on common public if a more systematic approach was used than this emotionally charged one.

Who will bear the cost of demonetization? who will pay for those stupid ads in radio and TV which keeps promoting cashless transitions and indirectly promotes companies that are reaping huge benefits now due to this exercise?

There are more trivial problems, most banks have dated infrastructure, they work the way they like, its almost like their dads little piggy bank, people say small and medium enterprises will benefit, I can tell you in writing it wont. Atleast for the next 10 years, reason if banks can refuse loans of a private company just cause the directors CIBIL score is low, well my question is who actually decided that CIBIL score is the bench mark? There are schemes like CGTMSC for SMEs and I am yet to meet a single deserving person who got a loan through this scheme. SME was a priority sector banking and each bank has a yearly target but it only goes to companies who don't need a loan, cause they already have a relationship with the said bank . I personally know cases where the CEO of a company funded by General Atlantic was forced to take a loan under this scheme, just cause the manager of the bank had targets to achieve.

This whole exercise has utilized that one emotion that every Indian banks on, "the corrupt should rot in hell', most of the scams of the previous government came to light when they left office, lets see what happens when the present government has a worthy opposition which has a clear agenda.

Yes, it predates the Constitution of India as it's governed by the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934.

Whatever autonomy it has is merely operational autonomy gained over the years

The RBI Act of 1934 says this:

"The Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank [...] necessary in the public interest. Subject to any such directions, [...] Central Board of Directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank."

So much for autonomy. It is law-bound to act in accordance with the wishes of the government du jour.

Like others have already mentioned, there were other easier way of recovering un accounted wealth, For instance, conduct raids on eminent builders in each city, conduct raids on doctors especially from the government sector, getting all under the tax net could have been less harsh on common public if a more systematic approach was used than this emotionally charged one.

Yes. And when all this happens, the black money hoarders, hawala dealers all would be sitting smug waiting for the raids to happen on their premises. The moment one builder gets raided, the entire gang of black money hoarders, hawala dealers would get alert and would dispose their unaccounted money. They can even hide the money in some forest area, and then recover it when things go easy. But not this time, because the old money was getting invalidated. These people had to bring out their cash wealth. Yes some did manage to byepass the banking system, but majority had to route this money through banks (and leave a trail).

Raids etc. have been conducted from time immemorial. How much black money have that yeilded? How many hawala rackets have got busted? When people talk about raids, chasing down the black money hoarders we need some concrete numbers there as well. How much black money was found out through raids etc. during the last 10 years vis-a-vis the money identified as "black money" during this excercise (for which IT notices have been issued).

Raids etc. have been conducted from time immemorial. How much black money have that yeilded? How many hawala rackets have got busted? When people talk about raids, chasing down the black money hoarders we need some concrete numbers there as well. How much black money was found out through raids etc. during the last 10 years vis-a-vis the money identified as "black money" during this excercise (for which IT notices have been issued).

Er, how much of the current collection has been classified so far as qualified black money?? So far, its just money hoarders.

Er, how much of the current collection has been classified so far as qualified black money?? So far, its just money hoarders.

For that we have to wait for the RBI and IT department to release the exact figures. But the last time I checked there was around 1080 crores of rupees which was "unaccounted" in Kerala Co.Op banks alone. Fine they can be classified as "money hoarders", and still be considered as legitimate income. But think about people hoarding 1080 crores of rupees.
PS: I am also awaiting up to date figures from RBI, and without that more such doubts are only going to come up.